The Israeli army, changing its account of a Lebanese border incident, said on Tuesday that an Israeli soldier killed by Hizbollah guerrillas on Monday was several metres inside Lebanon at the time.www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20571938.htm

Senior Iraqi sources tell TIME that a top U.N. election official, Carina Perelli, wrote an internal report last summer concluding that elections could be pulled off in just six months. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard confirms the substance of the report, saying its conclusions on “the technical aspects” are sound.www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040126-578974,00.html

===

Why Do Iowans Like to Caucus But Iraqis Don‚t?:

Iowans seem pretty happy with their quadrennial caucuses. Why do Iowans love what Iraqi Shiites hate? It‚s simple: Iowa‚s version of caucuses is true grassroots democracy in action, whereas the U.S. occupation authority‚s version in Iraq is a sham.www.independent.org/tii/news/040121Eland.html

According to advance reports, George Bush will use tonight’s State of the Union speech to portray himself as a visionary leader who stands above the political fray. But that act is losing its effectiveness.www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/opinion/20KRUG.html

===

A must listen

“Honest As Long As You Win”

Taking A Stand: BBC Radio 4 Interviews Daniel Ellsberg one of the most important whistle-blowers of the last century. He leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971. This 7,000-page document, detailing U.S. policy towards Vietnam under four presidents, was shocking stuff: a litany of lies, half-truths and concealment.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5557.htm

===

In case you missed it:

Senator John Kerry Speaks Out – He was ‘misled’:

In October, 2002, 23 Senators and 133 Representatives voted against the Bush Administration’s war resolution. John Kerry voted for it. What did 156 Members of Congress know that Kerry did not know? Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of his constituents had called him, urging him to vote against war.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5559.htm

It has often been pointed out by political scientists that the US is basically a one-party state — the business party. with two factions, Democrats and Republicans. Most of the population seems to agree. A very high percentage, sometimes passing 80%, believe that the government serves “the few and the special interests,” not “the people.”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5555.htm

===

Unjust war is the only issue: Iraq changes everything:

America under Bush started a war, killed thousands of people, sacrificed hundreds of her own valiant soldiers and conquered a soveriegn nation, using the justification that this foreign government participated in a heinous terrorist attack and posed an immediate and serious danger to America.www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/7750488.htm

Buried in the huge appropriations bill that the returning U.S. Senate must discuss this week is a little-noticed provision to privatize the Oklahoma City National Memorial — the park and museum on the site of the 1995 truck bombing that killed 168 people.www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040119-083450-3013r

By 1967, King had also become the country’s most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 — a year to the day before he was murdered — King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5553.htm

Seizing on an issue that will be critical to his re-election campaign, President Bush, will propose boosting spending on domestic security by about 9 percent in his 2005 budget, congressional sources said on Monday.abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040119_275.html

An act of secrecy by a Miami judge last year, ‘’super-sealing’’ a lawsuit by a South Florida man detained after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks so that no trace of his case appeared in any public record, has had the opposite of the intended effect.www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/7743433.htm

Within the United States, Bush does not appear to have suffered much political damage from the failure to find weapons, with polls showing high ratings for his handling of the war and little concern that he misrepresented the threat.www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3996047/

Latin America was the first international arena where the upstart United States of America was to practice interventionism: the use of economic or military tools to achieve a political or economic end — typically for one’s own benefit — in a foreign country, regardless of the interests or desires of that country.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5554.htm

Most of the new positions will be created in developing economies such as China and India, where the company is already exporting 3,000 US jobs in an effort to cut costs. But IBM stressed it was not turning its back on the US.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3409033.stm

===

Israeli Soldier Killed at Lebanon Border :

Hezbollah militants attacked an Israeli bulldozer at the Israeli-Lebanese border on Monday. Israel’s military said one soldier was killed and two were wounded, one seriously. The Islamic militant group said the bulldozer had crossed the border into Lebanon, but the Israeli army disputed that.www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3643572,00.html

Tens of thousands of Shia Muslims demonstrated in Baghdad today to demand prompt elections, the protest coming hours before US and Iraqi officials prepared to seek UN approval for their plans to transfer power in Iraq.www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1126468,00.html

A top Kurdish leader said Saturday that Iraq’s Kurdish minority would not sign on to guidelines being formulated for a transitional government unless Kurds were guaranteed an expanded region of autonomy and an ironclad commitment to expel Arabs settled in the area by deposed president Saddam Hussein.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26147-2004Jan17.html

The conclusion, after a week of tests by British, US and Danish experts, is a further blow to the dwindling hopes of finding the barred chemical, biological or nuclear weapons whose alleged existence was the official reason for the 20 March invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=482564

===

Karen Kwiatkowski: About Those Neocons: Thinking Again, or Just Wondering?:

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace just published WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications. Well, who really cares, right? So what if we lied about WMD, misled as to “war on terrorism” objectives, and wasted well over $200 billion we didn‚t have, deployed 150,000 troops, and killed over 500 of them Look at the bright side.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5549.htm

===

Ray McGovern: State Of The Union: Will speech lack hyperbole that ‘justified’ war?:

Iraqi chickens are coming to roost as President Bush’s advisors attempt to draft a State of the Union Message without the embarrassing flaws of their last try. With last year’s hyperbole — replete with the knee-slapper about Baghdad’s seeking uranium in Africa — forming part of the backdrop, they have their work cut out for them.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5550.htm

Although the public may appreciate that $401.3 billion is a great deal of money, few citizens realize that it is only part of the total bill for defense. To estimate the size of the entire de facto defense budget, I have gathered data for fiscal year 2002.www.independent.org/tii/news/031222Higgs.html

===

US military will stay in Georgia:

Having trained three battalions of Georgian soldiers, US military instructors were due to leave in March. According to the US Ambassador in Tbilisi Richard Miles, they are in Georgia to stay.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3406941.stm

If this year’s presidential election is at all close, there is every reason to believe that there will be another national trauma over who the rightful winner is, this time compounded by troubling new questions about the reliability of electronic voting machines. This is no way to run a democracy.www.iht.com/articles/125490.html

===

The Future of America under the American-led Empire:

Empire, an American-led empire, a corporate empire, “is‰ what the current administration is all about. Not only in the Middle East do we make war, but the world over if necessary. As the tenacious John Pilger recently wrote while sitting in on a meeting of journalists and aid workers in Iraq,… “It was as though we were disconnected from the world outside: a world of rampant, rapacious power and great crimes committed in our name by our government and its foreign masterwww.informationclearinghouse.info/article5551.htm

===

Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the World‚s Oil:

When first assuming office in early 2001, President George W. Bush‚s top foreign policy priority was not to prevent terrorism or to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction- Rather, it was to increase the flow of petroleum from suppliers abroad to U.S. markets.www.fpif.org/papers/03petropol/politics_body.html

===

Blair is on his way out, but will he jump or will he be pushed? :

A strong sense of self can become dangerous egotism in a heartbeat. Belief in “doing the right thing” can spill over into blinkered hectoring and intransigence. Winning an argument can become more important that the substance of the argument itself. And, on the evidence of the past few months, that is the world Tony Blair has now entered.news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=64422004

===

Iraq soldier ‘sickened’ by amputation claim :

A SCOTS soldier at the centre of a row over the quality of equipment supplied to British troops in Iraq last night demanded to know if his leg was amputated only because there was a lack of medical supplies.scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=63902004

President Bush and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) have decided to oppose granting more time to an independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.A growing number of commission members had concluded that the panel needs more time to prepare a thorough and credible accounting of missteps leading to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28025-2004Jan18.html?referrer=emailarticle

I am troubled by the mainstream news I see on the internet. What isn‚t being reported is the terrible living situation for millions of Iraqis, US troops being permanently disabled (physically and/or mentally) on what has become a daily basis, and generations of younger Iraqis being raised with a deep disdain towards the US and British who sanctioned, bombed, invaded and now occupy their country.

===

O‚Neill Tells All, And It‚s Not Pretty:

Long before the book appeared, administration officials attempted to dissuade Mr. O‚Neill from cooperating in its preparation. Old friends implored him, and officials whispered offers of sinecures and ambassadorial posts. He didn‚t want anything, and when the book‚s details began to leak out, White House operatives decided to get tough.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5545.htm

Bush‚s proven lying, especially during the State of the Union, his cover-ups, and refusal to provide important information on 9-11 to the people and its Congress, constitute a betrayal of trust, encroachment of Congressional prerogatives and abuse of power.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5547.htm

===

High Noon in America: Who will buy the Presidency? :

With the first vote cast in the Iowa Caucus, the horserace for the presidency begins in earnest. Honestly, even the most pragmatic citizen realizes that whatever the outcome on Election Day, it will be the result of nothing more than a “Hobson‚s‰ choice, in that we are offered a choice of taking what is offered or nothing at all.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5548.htm

===

Oil: The illusion of plenty:

Oil supplies are finite and will soon be controlled by a handful of nations; the invasion of Iraq and control of its supplies will do little to change that. One can only hope that an informed electorate and its principled representatives will realize that the facts do matter, and that nature—not military might—will soon dictate the ultimate availability of petroleum.www.thebulletin.org/issues/2004/jf04/jf04cavallo.html

National leaders of six conservative organizations yesterday broke with the Republican majorities in the House and Senate, accusing them of spending like “drunken sailors,” and had some strong words for President Bush as well.www.washtimes.com/national/20040115-112447-9758r.htm

Australian SAS troops initiated pre-emptive combat in western Iraq on the evening of March 18 (Iraq time). The force, previously secretly inserted into Iraq, attacked Iraqi positions in the first hours of darkness, 16 hours after Bush’s 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam to cede power. US-Australian operational planning began in mid-2002.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5542.htm

What is national security? This Administration defines national security as sending our young men and women around the world to wage war on country after country—none of them strong enough to threaten us. I define national security as making sure every American has health care, employment, decent housing, a clean environment.www.progressive.org/jan04/zinn0104.html

Hatred of Muslims has become the anti-Semitism of our era. The latest example of this ugly fact is the vicious prosecution by the U.S. military of a Muslim army chaplain, Capt. James Yee. I call this disgraceful and shameful case America’s Dreyfus Affair.www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_jan18.html

Northwest Airlines provided information on millions of passengers for a secret US Government air-security project soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks, raising more concerns among privacy advocates about airlines’ use of confidential customer data.www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/18/1074360636917.html

A state that defines itself as a democracy and law-abiding country does not imprison three-and-a-half million people in their villages and towns, slice up their country into strips, and declare roads for the use of Jews only.www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/384034.html

===

The Case That Wouldn’t Close:

Tom Hurndall is dead. Nine months after being shot in the head by an Israeli soldier which left him in a coma, two months after his 22nd birthday, and one day after his mother knelt at his bedside and whispered the good news that his assailant had finally been arrested, Tom Hurndall’s name was added to a growing, but mostly unmentioned, unheralded and unknown list of innocents slaughtered by Ariel Sharon’s brutal IDF (Israel Defense Forces).www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_4649.shtml

The detention of Islam-ul Haq, a principal staff officer for the father of Pakistan‚s nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, comes as Pakistan is investigating allegations its scientists passed on secrets and technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2423204

===

U.S. School Segregation Now at ‘69 Level :

Half a century after the Supreme Court ordered the desegregation of American education, schools are almost as segregated as they were when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, according to a report released today by Harvard University researchers.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26073-2004Jan17.html

A committee of Hollinger International directors launched a two-pronged attack on Black starting late Friday, suing him and the Sun-Times’ former publisher for $200 million, alleging they received the money through “improper means.” On Saturday night, the company’s executive committee voted to remove Black as chairman.www.suntimes.com/output/business/cst-nws-hollinger18.html

This time last year the neo-cons in the Bush administration were cock-a-hoop about their Iraq policy. With or without weapons of mass destruction, they were going to take the US to war against Iraq, topple Saddam Hussein and restore democracy and freedom .www.sundayherald.com/39334

United States Secretary of State Colin Powell says there is no question in his mind that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world while he was in power.www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1027079.htm

===

In case you missed it:

Powell Admits Saddam, “has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction”: February 24th, 2001

More and more evidence is coming in. The jigsaw pieces are fitting into place. It is becoming appallingly clear that President George Bush is an arrant liar and “the most incompetent and dangerous president in living memory”.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5541.htm

===

Audio Interview:

Former Nixon staffer Kevin Phillips is a prolific author and commentator. His book,: American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, he‚s turned his attention to the current Republican president, and he sees a family so powerful that it puts democracy itself at risk.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5540.htm

On the stunning disparity between a nation that glorifies war and one that honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a holiday. Let‚s not mince words. Were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. alive today, he would be at risk for being imprisoned indefinitely, without charges or access to legal counsel, as an “enemy combatant.‰www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16294

Nearly half the prisoners are interrogated each week in sessions lasting up to 16 hours. A prisoner released in May told Amnesty International that the interrogations “were like torture.” Australian lawyer Richard Bourke asserted on ABC Radio that prisoners had been subjected to “good old-fashioned torture, as people would have understood it in the Dark Ages.”jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew135.php

===

High Court to Consider Detention Case :

The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will decide whether the federal government may indefinitely imprison hundreds of Cubans and other illegal immigrants who have finished their sentences for crimes in the United States but whose home countries cannot or will not take them back.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23652-2004Jan16.html

===

Trip With Cheney Puts Ethics Spotlight on Scalia :

Friends hunt ducks together, even as the justice is set to hear the vice president’s case. Vice President Dick Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spent part of last week duck hunting together at a private camp in southern Louisiana just three weeks after the court agreed to take up the vice president’s appeal in lawsuits over his handling of the administration’s energy task force.www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ducks17jan17,1,7777211.story?coll=la-home-headlines

“There can be no doubt that the appointment of an outside special counsel is required in this case to fully investigate potential criminal actions implicating the United States Attorney General himself,”www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1626

IN THE small town of Qalat in Afghanistan where hundreds have died fighting US and government forces in the past few months, a man is explaining why he thinks the Americans are really in his homeland.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=63492004

===

Forget Halliburton.

The vice president’s former company may keep getting the headlines for its hefty contracts in Iraq and Pentagon overcharging, but it’s not the private company that’s so badly botched the training of the new Iraqi Army that the Jordanian Army has been hastily brought in to finish the job.www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9781/view/print

As the United States scrambles to end a dispute with Shia leaders over plans to elect an interim government in Iraq before July, it has emerged that American commanders are seeking to reach out to tribal leaders by relying on a report devised in 1918 by Britain, the country’s then ruler.news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482297

A team of IRS examiners will move into the global headquarters of the Nature Conservancy in Arlington to begin auditing the charity, the world’s largest environmental organization.www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3983933/

===

House GOP Warns White House on Budget Plan :

House Republicans warned a White House official that Congress may fail to adopt President Bush’s budget priorities this election year because of GOP divisions over spending levels. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, said Friday he told White House budget chief Joshua Bolten that he is concerned the president’s forthcoming budget will propose spending that is too high.www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3635928,00.html

WHITE House officials say the United Nations is to be asked to go back into Iraq to help oversee the transfer of power to the Iraqis. The United States will try to persuade the UN Secretary- General, Kofi Annan, to back the plan to set up an unelected government in Iraq by July.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=60132004

THE future of embattled Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, was plunged into fresh doubt yesterday when he appeared to suggest for the first time that he may resign after the publication of the results of the Hutton Inquiry.thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=58052004

The Neocon Case for Imprisoning and Executing Congressional War Opponents:

The neocon cabal is beginning to make the case for imprisoning ˆ or possibly executing ˆ members of Congress who oppose the war in Iraq. An example of this development is a December 23 Insight magazine article by senior editor J. Michael Waller entitled “When Does Politics Become Treason?”www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo57.html

===

In case you missed it:

Noam Chomsky: Dominance and its Dilemmas:

The Space Command released plans to go beyond US “control” of space for military purposes to “ownership,” which is to be permanent, in accord with the Security Strategy. Ownership of space is “key to our nation’s military effectiveness,” permitting “instant engagement anywhere in the world∑www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4955.htm

Thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets in the Gaza Strip to demonstrate their support for the spiritual leader of the radical Islamic group Hamas, after a senior Israeli defence official said he was marked for assassination.www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1026976.htm

The Pentagon is continuing to withhold documents on Cold War chemical and biological weapons tests that used unsuspecting sailors as “human samplers” after telling Congress it had released all medically relevant information.apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040116/D803UEN80.html

The deficit for the government’s pension insurance program ballooned to a record $11.2 billion last year, more than triple the previous year’s total, and officials are warning that taxpayers could be called on for a bailout.www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2356504

The Army Corps of Engineers document, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, raises new questions about Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company two days after Pentagon auditors requested an investigation of possible criminal wrongdoing.www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-3630041,00.html

===

Al Gore, Preident Bush Is A Moral Coward :

“While President Bush likes to project an image of strength and courage, the truth is that in the presence of his large financial contributors he is a moral coward ˆ so weak that he seldom if ever says “No‰ to them on anything ˆ no matter what the public interest might mandate.“www.moveon.org/gore3/speech.html

Now that Big Brother has a way to create a dossier on each and every one of us, flying a commercial airliner puts us at risk of being “persons of interest.” Buy a ticket and there is a file with your name on it, to be used by our government, we are assured, only to “track terrorists.” The information soon to be demanded of airlines will allow Big Brother to aggregate all other computer-based information about us.babelogue.citypages.com:8080/ecassel/2004/01/13

===

Tourists opt for Canada :

THE number of Scots visiting Canada is set to soar by up to 30 per cent next year, as a result of the United States‚ clampdown which requires all visitors from the UK, from October, to be in possession of a “biometric” passport, or a £67 visa, available only from London or Belfast.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=54792004

The fact any government agency was taking notes on church activities is worrisome to church officials. “Churches should not be subjected to this kind of monitoring,” said Margarita Lopez, co-chair of the Justice and Peace Committee of the church. “Our work in social justice should not be subject to police surveillance.”www.churchcentral.com/nw/s/template/Article.html/id/17985

===

Wailing wall :

With great speed, the original low, irrelevant wall is being replaced in East Jerusalem with a new structure that resembles some vast mythological dragon. All around are people who thought they’d already seen everything during the occupation, watching the scene in disbeliefwww.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/383663.html

===

Irish Foreign Minister Condemns Israel Security Barrier :

His remarks during a visit to the country yesterday were seen as serving notice that the new leadership of the European Union was likely to put more pressure on the Israeli government than its predecessor.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2415429

Sri Lanka’s President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, claims she privately took part in a second swearing-in ceremony a year after she last took office, and that this entitles her to stay in power an additional year, until 2006.www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/14/1073877905127.html

Former Slaves Tell Their Stories An opportunity to listen to former slaves describe their lives. Approximately four million Americans enslaved in the United States were freed at the conclusion of the American Civil War. Only twenty-six audio-recorded interviews of ex-slaves have been found. This collection captures the stories of former slaves in their own words and voices.memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfshtml/vfssp.html

===

One killed, five injured in Baghdad bomb blast:

A 15-year-old boy was killed and five people injured on Friday when a bomb exploded on a busy street in central Baghdad as US soldiers and Iraqi police were trying to defuse it, police and medics saidwww.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1026954.htm

Who is the most powerful man in Iraq today? Not L Paul Bremer, the US viceroy of Iraq, not even Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of the coalition forces. It is, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani. He communicates with his followers through written edicts (fatwas), and everyone, including the US president, listens.www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FA17Ak02.html

===

Iraq’s Shiites warn of fatwa over US handover:

An edict from Ayatollah Sistani could turn many Shiites against Washington as US-led forces battle guerillas in the minority Sunni Muslim areas north and west of Baghdad, heartland of support for now captive former dictator Saddam Hussein.www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/16/1073878025452.html

Recent developments in Northern Iraq may lead to the division of post-Saddam Iraq along ethnic lines. Kurds plan to turn their tactical gains from their role as unflinching U.S. allies in ousting Saddam Hussein into a strategic and historic one — a Kurdish federation that would include one of the world’s richest oil reserves in Kirkuk.www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=21936

===

Paul Krugman: Who Gets It?:

Earlier this week, Wesley Clark had some strong words about the state of the nation. “I think we’re at risk with our democracy,” he said. “I think we’re dealing with the most closed, imperialistic, nastiest administration in living memory. They even put Richard Nixon to shame.”www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/opinion/16KRUG.html

Now, as the United States prepares to try Saddam for torturing, gassing and killing his own people, does this absolve us of killing the same people because they are not our own? Is the killing of Iraqis a crime only when the perpetrators are local thugs – once in our pay – and not when we take up the killing, and execute it more efficiently, on our account?www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FA17Ak01.html

===

Organ Grinders: It’s all out in the open now.

The fact that the president of the United States and his top advisers deliberately concocted a false case for an illegal and unnecessary war — in plain terms, that they committed cold-blooded, premeditated mass murder — was confirmed last week by the most impeccable mainstream sources: George W. Bush’s own Cabinet officials, speaking for the record in America’s major media.www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/01/16/120.html

Just before his death, James Jesus Angleton, the legendary chief of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, was a bitter man. He felt betrayed by the people he had worked for all his life. In the end, he had come to realize that they were never really interested in American ideals of “freedom” and “democracy.” They really only wanted “absolute power.”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5538.htm

===

William Pfaff: The end of Bush and Blair’s friendship?:

One cannot call the Blair-Bush relationship a love affair, because love affairs are reciprocal, and on George’s side this affair seems to have been a heartless flirtation. Tony was useful while he was useful; and now, as the Hank Snow song has it, George has moved on.www.iht.com/articles/125015.html

===

British defence secretary apologises to widow for soldier’s death in Iraq :

Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship did not touch those rights. But the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering in late December that family laws shall be “canceled” and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as shari’a.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21321-2004Jan15.html

===

Baghdad Burning: Shari’a and Family Law… :

On Wednesday our darling Iraqi Puppet Council decided that secular Iraqi family law would no longer be secular- it is now going to be according to Islamic Shari’a. The news has barely been covered by Western or even Arab media and Iraqi media certainly ren’t covering it.riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

===

Support PEACE in IRAQ through CHANGE at HOME :

Help the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) advance the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by reversing our nation‚s moral failure in Iraq and defending the rights of the Iraqi people.www.epic-usa.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=176

Tony Blair was last night presented with the prospect of 24 concentrated hours of nail-biting that may decide the fate of his premiership when Lord Hutton announced he will unveil his report on the Kelly affair the day after MPs vote on student grants and fees.politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1124404,00.html

“I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm

===

America’s Empire of Bases:

As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize — or do not want to recognize — that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5537.htm

Karl Rove had a bad moment here the other night. It came as Wesley Clark was speaking to a packed hotel ballroom, “I don’t think it’s patriotic to dress up in a flight suit and prance around,” Clark bellowed. The men had been separated from the boys.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18406-2004Jan14.html

===

Saddam told his militia to avoid al Qaeda:

SADDAM Hussein warned his fedayeen militia against throwing in their lot with the Islamic militants flocking to Iraq to fight US forces, according to a document found with the deposed dictator when he was capturedwww.theherald.co.uk/news/8030.html

===

Bush pushes funding for religious groups:

“We ought to fund faith-based programs,‰ he said from the pulpit of the packed Union Bethel A.M.E Church in a run-down, crime-plagued neighborhood near this city‚s downtown. “Faith-based programs are only effective because they do practice faith. It‚s important for our government to understand that.‰www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3966413/

===

The Photographic History of the Bush Administration: Putting Its Mouth Where Its Money Isn‚t.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow: “A government that claims to be Jewish but is acting like Pharaoh”:

Why is the Israeli government cracking down on its own citizens who oppose its occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza and who are trying to prevent the human rights violations that go with the occupation?www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5536.htm

An anti-tank mine planted along a road in this central town blew up when a passenger bus went over it Thursday, killing at least three people and injuring one, the U.S. military said.www.cbc.ca/cp/world/040115/w011530.html

Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said yesterday that in the event of Iraq’s disintegration, Turkey will intervene. Erdogan stated that Iraqi Kurds are trying to take the oil regions under their control and “this should not be allowed. Kurds should be prevented from playing with the fire,” warned Erdogan.www.zaman.com/default.php?kn=6043

The number of unemployed African-Americans rose from 1.27 million in December 2000 to nearly 1.7 million in December 2003 ˆ the rate jumped from 7.6% to 10.3% (a 2.7% increase). White men fared a little better; the unemployment rate rose from 2.9% to 4.7% over that same span (a 1.8% increase).www.republicons.org/view_article.asp?RP_ARTICLE_ID=1124

===

A must read

3 Dire Warnings Fall on Deaf Ears!:

“They warned you. They warned you once. They warned you twice. They warned you three times. But you were all asleep. You were the masters of your house, but you let it burn down.”

Survey: Dutch military should not be engaged in armed conflicts abroad:

Seventy percent of the respondents says Dutch military should not fight inthe front lines of armed conflicts abroad, whereas sixty percent of those participating in the poll says troops should only be involved in humanitarian operations.ww.risq.org/article250.html

“The combination of being a Republican, of being an emperor, a Texan and outspoken is really a bad mix,” Aznar, one of Bush’s staunchest allies on Iraq and other issues, said in an interview Wednesday in The Washington Post.www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/7711538.htm

===

In case you missed it:

Nightmare vision:

Imagine for a moment that a group was absolutely relentless in its pursuit of power and was unrestrained when it came to seeking power and holding it. What if such a group sought to gain control of the U.S. government, the seat of the greatest economic, military and political power in the world, and it would stop at nothing to achieve its goal?www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/010504Cogswell/010504cogswell.html

===

In case you missed it:

Blind Loyalty to an Empire of Greed: The Corruptions of Patriotism:

Democracy has its moral basis in truth, tolerance, freedom, and respect for human dignity. These are all universal values. If we are loyal to these universal values, then we cannot at the same time be blindly loyal to one government or nation.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5534.htm

The Bush administration, wrongly focused on a speedy transfer of sovereignty to a friendly Iraqi government, has its priorities upside down. The real priority in Iraq today is an electoral process that ensures a legitimate government, valid in the eyes of Iraqis and the rest of the world.www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FA16Ak03.html

By that term I mean a national mindset—put forward strongly by a tight-knit leadership group—that takes on a sense of omnipotence, of unique standing in the world that grants it the right to hold sway over all other nations.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5532.htm

===

Audio: Superpower Syndrome:

America’s Apocalyptic Confrontation With The World:

We speak with author and psychiatry professor Robert Jay Lifton who says, “Superpower syndrome really means an American sense of entitlement to rule the world because it‚s the strongest power in the world.”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5531.htm

War mongers have surely been around since before the beginning of human history and will continue to test our love for liberty and peace. I believe the ultimate responsibility for saving the world from the grip of today’s empire builders lies with uswww.informationclearinghouse.info/article5529.htm

Iliyas, who is in London now on a business trip, was not aware that the world‚s top intelligence services were on his trail until newspaper reports on Tuesday mentioned him by name, his family members here told The Indian Express.www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=39179

===

2 Halliburton subcontractors killed in Iraq:

Two Halliburton Co. subcontractors were killed and one company employee was injured today, when their convoy was ambushed near Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, company officials confirmed.www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2353858

The US is the world’s biggest “debtor nation.” Foreigners own far more of its direct investments (plants, equipment, office buildings) and financial assets than Americans own in other nations.www.csmonitor.com/2004/0115/p16s01-usfp.html

===

Emerging triangles: Russia-Kazakhstan-China:

The dynamics of the emerging triangle involving Russia, Kazakhstan and China conform to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical vision, of which Europe and its “American cousins” are not an integral part.www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/FA15Ag03.html